# The war on ignorance may not be winnable **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 7, 2004, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497 "2004-12-07T04:40:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/61 "2004-12-07T18:00:14Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > … it seems that in your efforts to do so, you’re just not trying very hard. One other thought to add. As I said above, if you asked most Christians what could make them lose their faith in God, the answer would be “nothing”. If you asked me what would make me believe in God, I can think of all sorts of things that would. Now, who is not trying hard enough? ---
**Author:** ![Satyagrahi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f475e1/32.png) [@Satyagrahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satyagrahi)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/62 "2004-12-07T18:02:25Z")
[tangent] > [@tomndebb](#): > > Newsweek still publishes with the intent to find readers and this poll was included in a pre-Christmas edition. I’ve subscribed to Newsweek for several years but I find myself increasingly dissatisfied with it: More and more feature and fluff articles and less and less news. I don’t intend to renew this time around . And, from what I can see, Time is much the same way. Can anyone recommend a good news, real news, magazine? [/tangent] ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/63 "2004-12-07T18:08:24Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Or, I could simply be right. You seem to be assuming that I \*\*cannot \*\*be right. I’m making no such assumption. On a personal level, I happen to agree with you. I’m simply arguing that a willingness or lack of to reconcile the two usually is the sole determining factor in one’s success. Would you agree with this? This is ignoring your chicken/egg paradox, of course, which is an excellent point. One comment on **gobear** ’s suggestion to throw out religion altogether – when one comes to an impass, one must either keep trying for a solution or discard one or the other. Unfortunately, a huge segment of the population has chosen to discard science, as their beliefs preclude them from any other course of action. Sad. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/64 "2004-12-07T18:11:17Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > One other thought to add. As I said above, if you asked most Christians what could make them lose their faith in God, the answer would be “nothing”. > > If you asked me what would make me believe in God, I can think of all sorts of things that would. > > Now, who is not trying hard enough? What, exactly, are you accusing me of? Or are you accusing atheism in general? Or am I completely misunderstanding the question? I would remind you that a great many atheists have put a great deal of effort into coming to the conclusions that they have. ---
**Author:** ![FordPrefect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e99b99/32.png) [@FordPrefect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordPrefect)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/65 "2004-12-07T18:17:27Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > No, you’ve just restated the chicken and the egg paradox. At some point in the past, the creature in the egg was a chicken, but the creature’s parent’s were not. There is clearly a point, even if it’s not intuitively obvious. > > And what’s wrong with the idea that multiple species of hominds had souls? It was my discovery of the non-literality (sorry) of Genesis that triggered my abandonment of my faith, and my slide (up or down, you can pick) into weak atheism. The problem I had was not with the ensoulment at a particular time, although that is somewhat troubling that it took God 3.5 billion years to His image to appear after balling up the dust, but rather that the doctrine of orginal sin, which is quite important to Evangelicals, was nullified by an evolving humanity. It is highly unlikely that an entire population of ensouled humans would commit a sin collectively, or all individually, which would allow sinful natures to be handed down to their progeny. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/66 "2004-12-07T18:22:41Z")
> [@FordPrefect](#): > > the doctrine of orginal sin, which is quite important to Evangelicals, was nullified by an evolving humanity. It is highly unlikely that an entire population of ensouled humans would commit a sin collectively, or all individually, which would allow sinful natures to be handed down to their progeny. Excellent point. Never thought of that. This is one huge problem I have with religion – the assumption that we need redemption in the first place, so that clerics can continue to draw a paycheck. It’s like the ads that convince you that you have bad breath, and lucky for you they can save you from that affliction, for a price. ---
**Author:** ![PinkMarabou](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ec9cab/32.png) [@PinkMarabou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PinkMarabou)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/67 "2004-12-07T18:25:08Z")
> [@gobear](#): > > Of course, you could always choose the option of chucking the whole God hypothesis into the toy box with the rest of the outmoded, discarded ideas that humanity has outgrown. > > Just a thought. I like this idea. But then I’m also part of the tiny group who does not believe in souls, heaven or hell, god or satan. I believe we don’t really know HOW we got here and it obviously is something the 90% (or whatever the number is) of the brain we don’t use holds the key to. I believe in doing good and treating others kindly, bottom line. I guess some would call me a humanist, I call it being a realist. I try not to make a decision on things until I see concrete evidence and I just haven’t been convinced of anything yet. I think the ONLY thing we should be teaching in schools is what has been shown with science, not mythology. My father used to say “those who wrote the Bible must have been smoking some serious $hit”. I tend to agree. But that’s just me. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/68 "2004-12-07T18:34:39Z")
> [@PinkMarabou](#): > > I believe we don’t really know HOW we got here and it obviously is something the 90% (or whatever the number is) of the brain we don’t use holds the key to. Not to hijack this thread (he said, as he hijacked the thread), but that 10% of the brain thing is a myth. Just thought you’d like to know. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/69 "2004-12-07T18:53:28Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Even punctuated equilibrium doesn’t argue for that radical a change in one generation. Eh? Punctuated equilibrium doesn’t argue for a radical change in any number of generations. It isn’t a theory about evolution _per se_, it’s a theory about the appearance of the fossil record (namely, that it isn’t complete not only because of the vagueries of the fossilization process itself, but because of the nature of speciation events). Nothing more, nothing less. ---
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/70 "2004-12-07T18:59:23Z")
> [@FordPrefect](#): > > It was my discovery of the non-literality (sorry) of Genesis that triggered my abandonment of my faith, and my slide (up or down, you can pick) into weak atheism. The problem I had was not with the ensoulment at a particular time, although that is somewhat troubling that it took God 3.5 billion years to His image to appear after balling up the dust, but rather that the doctrine of orginal sin, which is quite important to Evangelicals, was nullified by an evolving humanity. It is highly unlikely that an entire population of ensouled humans would commit a sin collectively, or all individually, which would allow sinful natures to be handed down to their progeny. At the risk of driving you back into the fold, there apparently was a single human female ancestor to all current living humans, who maybe sort of coulda commited the original sin. Of course, contrary to the bible she wasn’t the only human alive at the time, she was just the progeniator of all humans living today [cite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve) As **John** said, while evolution doesn’t provide much need for God, if xtians are willing to abandon the literal 7 days interpretation of genesis, then evolution doesn’t necessarily need to _contradict_ the rest of the bible. ---
**Author:** ![PinkMarabou](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ec9cab/32.png) [@PinkMarabou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PinkMarabou)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/71 "2004-12-07T19:46:30Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > Not to hijack this thread (he said, as he hijacked the thread), but that 10% of the brain thing is a myth. Just thought you’d like to know. My bad. And I am a woman. Carry on. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/72 "2004-12-07T19:54:36Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > What, exactly, are you accusing me of? Or are you accusing atheism in general? Or am I completely misunderstanding the question? I would remind you that a great many atheists have put a great deal of effort into coming to the conclusions that they have. I’m not accusing you of anything. You said, above, that I probably wasn’t trying hard enough if I hadn’t been able to reconcile religion and evolution. I simply wanted to point out that that was only one possibility. I don’t really make much of the fact that many religious people have reconciled their beliefs with any particular scientific discovery. By and large, they start out with the assumption that God exists, and then modify their definition of God to fit the data. At some point, it seems to me, you end up modifying Him out of existence. > [@](#): > > This is one huge problem I have with religion – the assumption that we need redemption in the first place, so that clerics can continue to draw a paycheck. It’s like the ads that convince you that you have bad breath, and lucky for you they can save you from that affliction, for a price. Me too, which is why I mentioned the part about a soul needing to be saved when I started talking about a soul earlier in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/73 "2004-12-07T19:55:54Z")
> [@PinkMarabou](#): > > My bad. And I am a woman. Carry on. The “he” I referred to was me. You woman. I man. So, how _you_ doin’? ---
**Author:** ![PinkMarabou](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ec9cab/32.png) [@PinkMarabou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PinkMarabou)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/74 "2004-12-07T20:09:27Z")
Reading skills not on par today, my apologies. :smack: I’m doin good. How YOU doin? ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/75 "2004-12-07T20:16:03Z")
> [@PinkMarabou](#): > > Reading skills not on par today, my apologies. :smack: > > I’m doin good. How YOU doin? I hate my job today. You wanna get outa here, get a drink maybe? ---
**Author:** ![PinkMarabou](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ec9cab/32.png) [@PinkMarabou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PinkMarabou)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/76 "2004-12-07T20:23:04Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > I hate my job today. You wanna get outa here, get a drink maybe? Huh, you too? Drinks sound good to me. ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/77 "2004-12-07T20:31:59Z")
Uh, well, grumble grumble, polls told me that Kerry was going to win the election quite handily… ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/78 "2004-12-07T20:44:53Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Oops, I accidentally hit submit instead of preview, Anyway, rant, rant rant…fucking stupid Americans…blah blah blah…this is why we have a chimp running the country…etc. etc, > > There are some more polls in the same issue and after reading them all, i have to say it’s truly fucking scary how monumentally backwards we are as a people. Oh, bitch bitch. Look, hippie, if evolution was true, then we should have seen Dubya transform into a human before our very eyes over the last four years. But he hasn’t, has he? Therefore, evolution is bunk. -Joe, doesn’t do drugs because if you do drugs you’re a hippie, and hippies suck ---
**Author:** ![El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/41988e/32.png) [@El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Cid_Viscoso)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/79 "2004-12-07T20:46:28Z")
> [@World Eater](#): > > Oh well we had a decent run. Time to look up a country where I can raise my nonexistent kids. Well, you can rule out fleeing to Great Britain, m’man. Half of them have never heard of Auschwitz. For the under-35 crowd, it’s 60%. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/80 "2004-12-07T21:14:37Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > This is one huge problem I have with religion – the assumption that we need redemption in the first place, so that clerics can continue to draw a paycheck. It’s like the ads that convince you that you have bad breath, and lucky for you they can save you from that affliction, for a price. Except that absent regular use of certain dental hygiene consumer products, most of us do in fact have really crappy breath. 😃 Of course, shooting your analogy down proves nothing about the need (or lack thereof) for redemption. Just from experience and observation, though, there are frequent moments when I don’t love my neighbor (or even myself), and the same seems to be true of most of humanity. Call it what you will (the Christian term of art for that is ‘sin’), and call the need for forgiveness and healing of that far-too-frequent condition what you will (‘redemption’), we’re talking about a genuine human phenomenon here, not just something to keep clerics employed. The controversial part is the question of whether any divine being, let alone the Christian God, exists to grant such forgiveness and administer such healing. (I’d say “the debatable part” except the existence-of-God debate pretty much boils down to “He exists!” “Does not!” “Does too!” “Does not!” _ad infinitum_, which isn’t much of a debate really.) But there’s nothing that intellectually tricky about being a Christian who regards certain Biblical stories (e.g. the book of Jonah, the first 11 chapters of Genesis) as mythology, not history. And if one is such a Christian, recognizing the scientific validity of evolution is no problem. And I’ve got no strong opinion either way on whether other primates, dolphins, dogs, etc. have souls. (I’m sure about cats, though: any species that regards humans as ‘staff’ is one level up from us, as far as these things go. And no, they don’t need to be able to operate can openers; that’s what God put _us_ on this planet for. :)) > [@tdn](#): > > It will be my last great thought before the Inquisition comes to get me. That’s what _you_ think. Just remember, you won’t be expecting it. 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497.md?page=5)